My 10 Year Old Son Has Sudden Onset Gerd Since Christmas. Medicines Not Working! How Did This Start?

April 17, 2009

Question

Asked by Kari

My 10 Year Old Son Has Sudden Onset Gerd Since Christmas. Medicines Not Working! How Did This Start?

I cannot find any info about an sudden case of GERD in children. He is CONSTANTLY regurgitating his food and swallowing it down, though he seems to sleep fine. Happens when he eats anything, but especially worse with acidic, mildly spicy and chocolate. My sister, mom and uncle have ulcerative colitis and I am have the anitnuclear antibody. He has been on zantac, prevacid (3months to current) and reglin. Nothing works. This summer the doctor (pediatric gastroenterologist at Denver's Children's) wants to do a endoscopy and ph test. Two more months of my son doing this. Do you have any information? Why did this suddenly start? Please help!

Answer

Hello Kari,

My daughter, age 17 was diagnosed with GERD at age 10 years too. It just came out of nowhere. She had some reflux/allergies as a baby and then seemed better. At age 10, she started losing weight and all of the food she previously liked tasted bad. My understanding is adults have the same experience with reflux. Year after year, everything is fine and then all of a sudden, you start having heartburn.

I have written some blogs about my teens with GERD so be sure to search this site for more information. I like the doctors plan of doing an endo and probe this summer if things have not improved.

My kids are very careful eaters and have found lactose to be a related digestive issue. They also found that taking probiotics calmed the reflux and lactose intolerance quite a bit. While probiotics are not a "treatment" for GERD, I think the probiotics helped with the gas and discomfort.

Maybe you would want to start a Sharepost and see if we can gather some other children and teens with reflux? I have talked to several teens recently here and there seems to be a need to connect.